Lawrence W. Barsalou, PhD

Lawrence Barsalou is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology at Emory University. He received a Bachelors degree in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego in 1977, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University in 1981. Since then, he has held faculty positions at Emory University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Chicago, returning to Emory in 1997.

Barsalou's research addresses the nature of human conceptual processing and its roles in perception, memory, language, and thought. The current theme of his research is that the conceptual system is grounded in the brain's modal systems for perception, action, and internal states. Specific topics of current interest include the roles of conceptual processing in emotion, self, stress, abstract thought, and contemplative practices.

His research also addresses role of mental simulation in conceptual processing, the situated and embodied nature of knowledge, the dynamic online construction of conceptual representations, the development of conceptual systems to support goal achievement, and the structure of knowledge. Barsalou's research has been funded primarily by the National Science Foundation. He has held a Guggenheim fellowship; served as the chair of the Cognitive Science Society; won an award for graduate teaching from the University of Chicago; is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the Cognitive Science Society, and the Mind and Life Institute.